Santander’s Getnet appoints Juan Franco as new global CEO

By Gloria Methri

Getnet, Santander’s global provider of payment solutions for merchants, has announced the appointment of Juan Franco as the new global CEO of Getnet, effective soon.

Franco joins Getnet from Canadian FinTech company Nuvei, where he has been senior vice president of AsiaPacific for the last two years. Franco was CEO and co-founder of Paymentez, an online payment platform in Latin America, for 11 years before Nuvei acquired the company. Prior to that, he also worked for American companies in different senior roles in Latin America, including VMWare and Salesforce. He has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Universidad del Rosario (Colombia).

After two and a half years as CEO of Getnet, Kush Saxena has decided to resign for personal reasons. He will transition into an advisory role to the board of Getnet and continue as chairman of Getnet’s Mexican tech partner MIT. In his new role, he will focus on overseeing and advising on future projects and initiatives for the business globally.

Ana Botín, executive chair of Santander and PagoNxt, said, “We are delighted that Juan Franco is joining as CEO of Getnet, our leading merchant payments franchise. In the last three years, Getnet’s total payment volume has doubled, and we now process over €200 billion in payments every year from 1.3 million merchants globally. The payments business is a growing segment, and we expect PagoNxt, our broader payments business that includes Getnet, to continue expanding and delivering double-digit revenue growth. We continue to leverage our network and technology to drive innovations for customers, including, for example, the recently launched multi-market eCommerce payment solution in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Chile, which is unique in the region.”

He added, “I am grateful to Kush for the important contribution he has made to the success of the business and look forward to continuing to work together.”